Amitava Mukherjee
The charade has moved on expected line. After his ignominious defeat in the just concluded 17th general election Congress president Rahul Gandhi goes to his mother Sonia Gandhi, and not the Congress Working Committee (CWC), to express his desire to resign from the post of Congress president. The ‘sagacious’ Sonia advises her son to go to the CWC instead . Expectedly the CWC refused to accept Rahul’s resignation and invested him with more powers to rejuvenate the party. Thus was lost a chance for self introspection for the Congress.
But whatever may be the attempt by the CWC to paper over the failure of its party leadership, Congres is now faced with a serious crisis. Not only has the Congress been reduced to only 51 seats in the Lok Sabha, its leader had to bite the dust in Amethi, so long regarded as a family bastion. Now it becomes clear why Rahul had chosen Waynad in Kerala as a second seat. All the Congress’ talks of presenting a pan-Indian party character were nonsense and bullshit. Rahul was wary of defeat in Amethi. So he was in need of a second constituency to find feet in the Lok Sabha.
Congress can take recourse to history. Once Indira Gandhi had also chosen Chikmagalur in Karnataka as a second constituency after her defeat in Rae Berrily in the 1977 general election. But then the situation was different. A strong anti Congress gale was blowing over the country in the wake of the Emergency. Moreover Indira was courageous enough to fight from one constituency at a time.
Apparently the CWC’s decision not to accept Rahul’s resignation is likely to give an impression that Congress has successfully tackled uncertainty over its leadership question. But questions over Rahul and Sonia’s ability to lead the 134 year old political behemoth has been lingering within the Congress for a long time. Sometimes back the late Makhan Lal Fotedar, political aide of Indira Gandhi, had said that Sonia and Rahul’s leadership would be questioned inside the party one day.
Only time can say whether Fotedar’s prediction will come true or not. But Congress’ political graph shows that there is little to be hopeful about Rahul’s leadership qualities and his ability to learn from past history. Otherwise he could have easily understood that Congress’ close identification with the womenfolk of the minority community of the country got a severe jolt when his father Rajiv Gandhi had made a costly flip flop over the Shah Bano case. In spite of this past lesson at hand Congress has prevaricated on the triple talaq issue.
The latest CWC meeting indicates that Congress is yet to take any lesson from the just concluded parliamentary election. The party has to confront the truth that in India’s electoral history Congress’ fortune touched the rock bottom in 2014 when Congress won only 44 seats and got 19.52 percent votes. This year’s result is no better. From 1952-1984 Congress’ seat tally always remained on the plus side of 350 with the exception of 1967 and 1977 when the party won 283 and 154 seats respectively. But on both the aforementioned two occasions Congress could bounce back in triumphant colours in the elections that followed. Another important point to note is that during this period Congress’ vote share remained around 40 percent. Even in 1977, a disastrous year for Indira Gandhi, Congress could garner 34.5 percent votes.
Strangely the CWC meeting did not dissect the reasons behind Congress’ failure. A.K. Antony presented a bizzare idea that the result is no disaster for the Congress, only the party could not fare as expected. P. Chidambaram is reported to have shed tears at the prospect of Rahul resigning from the party president’s post. Ghulam Nabi Azad averred that Rahul has many notable achievements. None of them tried to understand the fact that not just Rahul Gandhi but the entire Congress party is now somewhat detached from reality.
Congress should realize that Indian electoral kaleidoscope fundamentally changed since 1989 with the adoption of Vindheswari Prasad Mandal Commission’s recommendations. That is the reason why Congress’ electoral tally fluctuated wildly from 1989 to 2014. Except in 1989, 1991 and 2009 Congress’ total number of seats in the Lok Sabha remained far below 200 mark with the 2014 election putting the party into grave crisis. This should have been enough for the Congress to go to the electorate for understanding their minds.
BJP did this exactly to outsmart the Congress. Of late there has been a fundamental change in the mindset of the Dalits , Muslims and some other marginalized sections of the society who now put more premiums on getting economic benefits rather than caste/religion based social justice. BJP utilized this new phenomenon by putting into practice the idea of a Maha Hindutva encompassing all sections of the society with a certain emphasis on economic parametres like agricultural, infrastructural, industrial developments etc. This new tool has helped Narendra Modi to penetrate into the caste/ religion ridden layers of societies in several states. This is certainly one of the reasons behind the massive victory of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance(NDA) in the just concluded election.
So the task before the Congress is stupendous. Rahul’s leadership is under question. Priyanka Gandhi has flopped. But there is no sign of any alternative leadership in the horizon.
( The author is a senior journalist and commentator)
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